


Untangle The Wires To Get To The Heart Of You

by theprincessed



Category: Emmerdale RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Marriage Proposal, Misunderstandings, Relationship Advice, Romantic Gestures, Surprises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 06:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7255561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprincessed/pseuds/theprincessed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whilst around Danny's parents' house, Ryan overhears a conversation between Danny and his sister that ultimately forces him to unexpectedly make a grand gesture he'd actually been getting advice on for the past week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untangle The Wires To Get To The Heart Of You

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is random. The Ryan in my head _won't shut up_ , please make him stop! (or at least gimme a break lol) I started writing this at 1am and finished it today. I wanted to introduce more females into the rpf universe, but I wasn't intending this fic to turn out like it did!! I just wanted to write about unlikely friendships that still make sense and banter lol. Ah, I had fun in the end anyway.
> 
> Hope you enjoy x

Ryan's halfway to the kitchen when he hears voices already in there. They're at Danny's parents' house for a family get-together and whilst they've always done nothing but welcome him with open arms, sometimes his innate shyness gets the better of him and he has to take a break from being around people, usually sneaking away for a moment to himself or to latch onto Danny as his much needed anchor. This time, he'd offered to get another bottle of wine from the fridge, delighting Danny's mum with the thought, but he's frozen to the spot. He knows he shouldn't eavesdrop except his guilt fades a little when he recognises one of the voices as belonging to Danny.

“Luce, come on, this is me. Something's up , I know it is.” he urges, tone gently pleading.

Lucy, Danny's older sister, sighs heavily. “I saw him, your Ryan.” she says slowly, uncertain, and his name coming from her mouth makes Ryan blink from his stupor. He takes a step forward, but hesitates. It feels like he needs to know more before announcing his presence, casually of course. “In the city centre yesterday. With some woman. A _very pretty, blonde woman_.”

“What?” Danny breathes, laughter in the word, as Ryan thinks the same. “Were you spying on him or somethin'?”

“Don't talk soft!” she splutters, “Of course not, what do you take me for, honestly. No, I was just passing to pick up some bits from that school uniform place Mum used to take us to and I saw him in the window of one of those trendy cafes Gareth's always on about every time I go for a cut and blow dry.”

“I see.” Danny says, confused. “So, you saw him in public with a woman. And?” Ryan pictures him rolling his eyes and it almost makes him smile. “Wow, Luce. You have a right scandal on your hands there! 'Man Has Coffee With Woman,'” his voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper, “'In Public'.”

“You don't understand!” she whines, frustrated. “They looked – well, they looked, y'know, _cosy_.”

Hidden in the hallway, Ryan thinks back to yesterday. With a couple of weeks off work for him and Danny, he'd decided at the start to make an effort to catch up with family and friends he rarely got to spend time with when working 12 hour days and in the weekend bubble with his boyfriend. He and Danny had just moved in together in a place in Leeds and yesterday had been another chance for Ryan to meet up with someone for coffee and a chat now that he had big news to share.

“Yeah?” Danny says and, for the first time, he seems reluctant. Ryan's gets goosebumps as dread washes over him until Danny speaks again. “Is this because he's bi? Jesus Christ, Lucy!” he half-shouts, conscious of everyone in the other room and what should include Ryan but he can't possibly move away now. “He can have female friends without wanting to fuck them, alright? Bloody hell, woman. We're building a home together, he's trying his best with my crazy fuckin' family and you want to accuse him of cheating? Cheers, really.”

“Dan – Danny, wait,” she begs and Ryan panics for a second that he's going to find him on the other side of the kitchen door, but he must do as his sister says because it doesn't happen. “I'm just telling you what I saw, okay? He's really nice, I like him a lot, but you're my little brother and I don't want to see you get hurt, ever. That's all. It's my job to look out for you.”

Pleased that her confession had good intentions, Ryan chooses to bite the bullet and walks into the kitchen. “It's true.” Lucy's mouth falls open and Danny frowns. Ryan realises too late how it sounds and puts his hands up in surrender. “No, not _that_! I'm not cheating on you!” he cries, looking at his boyfriend. “I meant, it's true that it probably is still Lucy's job to protect you _and_ I did meet someone in Manchester yesterday, for coffee and I might've, I dunno, kissed her on the cheek. It was Sammy.”

Danny's shoulders sag, tension leaving him in a rush, and after a pause he punches his sister hard in the arm, just like he used to as a cheeky little shit of a kid. His grin is as big as it was back then too. “You're a fuckin' arsehole idiot.”

“Ow! Danny!” she pouts, “Who's Sammy?”

“Sammy's a former colleague of ours. She played Katie, my character's sister-in-law, on the show.” Ryan explains. 

Danny looks so gleeful at his sister's wrongful assumption that he has to chuckle as his boyfriend crosses the kitchen and fits under his arm, linking his hand with Ryan's over his shoulder. He looks up at him. “What were you doing meeting up with Sammy? Besides, y'know, catching up.”

“Ah now, that'd be telling, wouldn't it?” he winks and briefly leans in to chastely kiss Danny's lips.

\----

Ryan sends off a text to Louise that he's been drafting for the last ten minutes as he waits. He's sat in a coffee shop Danny told him a couple of weeks ago was the best Manchester had to offer that wasn't a Starbucks because he figured it was his treat when he was dragging the person he was meeting away from her new life.

_I need to talk to you ASAP. Need advice on something. Think I've got scenes with you Tuesday. I'll shout you lunch?_

He checks his watch and his leg starts bouncing restlessly until his phone buzzes on the table. He reads that she's replied already.

_Don't need to bribe me to spend time with you! I miss you y'know. I'm all ears. :) x_

“Still attached to that thing then,” he hears a familiar voice say, but one he hasn't heard in far too long. His distraction to pass the time until her arrival had worked because he hadn't heard her come in.

“Still can't kick the late habit, I see,” he retorts as he stands up to greet her. 

“Come back to me when you've got an indecisive 11-year old on your hands,”

Ryan kisses her on the cheek and then goes in for a hug because despite how things ended onscreen, he's missed working with her. “Hi, gorgeous. How're you? How _is_ Mia?”

Sammy takes the seat opposite him and opens her handbag to get her purse. “She's growing up scarily fast, but yeah, we're good. Keeping busy with the new house and auditions. I think I've finally stopped missing you guys.”

“Oh, thanks very much! Not sure I wanna pay for whatever you want now,” he jokes, but already stands to order anyway.

“You don't have to do that,”

“I know. I want to. Get ready to tell me everything.”

Once their settled with their drinks, they catch up on each other's lives and it's lovely, but Sammy must sense something is off because she stops halfway through some anecdote about an audition gone laughably pear-shaped because of a miscommunication issue and touches Ryan's hand. Looking back on it now, it probably did look very tactile in passing to someone like Lucy, who he's still learning about, but that was the kind of people they were. It made getting in Sammy's face as Robert a whole lot easier when he knew she wouldn't back off either.

“You've heard all about what I've been up to,” she says gently, “and now it's your turn. How's Danny?”

Nervous, he looks at her small hand on top of his. He wishes he could bite his nails right now, but that would require moving and he doesn't want to be too obvious. Their eyes meet and he tries on a smile. “He's great. Still amazing at this job.”

Her blue eyes are steely. “That's not what I asked and you know it. Have you two – are you not - ?”

“You're as nosy as Katie was, you are, and look where that got her,” he jokes feebly, cracking.

“I heard you're a reformed character,” she narrows her eyes suspiciously, leaning in towards him, but squeezes his hand and her face smooths back into seriousness. “So, you've broken up? Is that why you asked me here? Shit, Ryan, I didn't even think - ”

He sits up, their hands letting go, and licks his dry lips, knowing if he wants her advice then he has to put her out of her misery. “We're still together.” he interrupts, “I love him, Sammy, more than - ” he cuts himself off with a bashful shake of the head and lowers his voice. “I thought it was just for fun, but it grew and grew and we _fit_. It's mad and probably a cliché to fall in love with your onscreen love interest, but we love each other.”

Sammy raises her eyebrow, taking a sip of her coffee to give her time to understand what Ryan's struggling to shyly admit. “And the problem is? Everyone knew before I left, so it can't be to do with work...”

“Thanks for that, by the way,” he smirks, thrown back to the chain of events that led to him and Danny declaring their relationship to a few of their closest castmates and production team.

“I thought Kelvin knew already!” she protests, “You work with him as much as I did!”

“Yeah and he's the worst at keeping secrets.” he laughs, feeling the mood lighten and his anxiety ease. He can do this. “I think he knew Vic and Adam were gonna get married before Isabel and Adam did because Maxine had told him that me and him would get to be involved too, and obviously he went straight to Isabel like 'congratulations'!”

Sammy grins, her eyes soft as they talk about Kelvin, except she adds nothing else to keep the conversation going. Instead, she sighs. “Listen. Just spit it out. You're worst than Mia with her first crush, I swear.”

“Okay, I need your advice on something important and you _can't_ tell Kelvin yet.” He looks at her through his eyelashes, tries a glare and bites his lip so hard to keep from laughing that it almost hurts. “I mean it, Sammy. I know you still talk to him and this needs to be top secret.”

“Robert doesn't suit you out of context.” she sniffs then ruins it by practically vibrating with excitement. “God, get on with it! This is so exciting I'm gonna burst,”

Ryan reaches for his phone to show her what he needs.

\----

The Tuesday of that week, he manages to keep his promise to Louise, although they only end up in the studio canteen as she's needed for extra filming without Ryan later on. He loves being back on the Home Farm set and working with her and John again and it really feels like old times when they sit down together, having come into the show at the same time and grown close because of it and their roles.

Ryan picks at the food in front of him, too distracted to be hungry, and Louise, reacting to him, slows down. With salad halfway to her mouth, she drops her fork onto her plate as she changes her mind and Ryan blinks at her, back in the room.

“So what's so urgent you needed to do this here?”

“It's not exactly my idea of the best place either.” he sighs then smiles helplessly because he's missed how she sees straight through him. With Sammy it's a lot of banter and an ease of friendship, with Louise it's a shorthand borne of playing a married couple, however brief. Her face is expectant so, unlike his chat with Sammy, he cuts to the chase. “I need to ask how to do something, like, your opinion on what you think I should do.”

“Sounds interesting. I'm listening.”

They talk it over until Ryan's a little less tense. With every meeting he's had with every person he trusts the opinion of so far, their advice has been varied and invaluable and things soon turn to reminiscing. 

“Do you remember how you barely said two words to me at the final audition?” Ryan groans as Louise beams, before her head tilts and she looks at him fondly. “And then we did that scene together and it was like a switch was flicked on. This confidence and charm came from nowhere and god, then I knew I really, really wanted this job. I wanted to work with you so much. And John and Thomas, of course.”

Embarrassed, he does remember that and also what happened afterwards. “I had an idea that you wanted it because you made that awful joke - ” It's her turn to cringe. “- You called me your husband, even though we were only meant to be engaged going into the show, and then you said not to tell your actual husband that you'd said that. Which I never did, by the way. Although,” he frowns, pretending, “what do you mean I was suddenly all those things? Am I not confident and charming as myself?”

Louise laughs and curls her manicured fingers around his chin, “You, _you_ are adorable. And any man, woman or whoever would be lucky to have you.”

Having asked her every question he could think of for what was on his mind, her honesty now is incredibly touching and he pulls her into a high hug, not caring that the table is kind of in the way. “Thanks, Lou.”

“Hey, should I be worried?”

They break apart to see Kelvin standing beside them and Ryan kisses the back of Louise's hand with a smirk, making her laugh and squirm away. “Stop it! That's the last time I give you a compliment,”

“Just making the most of my time,” he answers then sits back in his seat with folded arms, looking up at his onscreen brother. “Come to take her away from me, have you?”

“That's all your fault, mate,” he teases and Ryan nods because touché. 

Louise impressively swallows down a few more leaves and her water before her and Kelvin say their goodbyes and leave Ryan alone. Despite everyone lately making jibes that he's surgically attached to the thing, there's a reason for it as he pulls his phone from his jacket pocket and flicks through some of the pictures, satisfied that this is going to be the right thing to do.

\----

“Come on then, what's this all about?” Lucy demands, back in the present of her, Danny and Ryan standing in her parents' kitchen. “Because you've still not told us anything. Aside from not cheating on my brother,” she adds, blushing.

“Hm?” he says, memories of the past week fading. “Oh, that. Yeah, I wasn't gonna do this tonight but I guess I need to prove myself.” he winks at her, joking. 

He turns his face to look at Danny and that's when he's sure. In fact, he's never been surer of anything else in his life. It's not how he would've planned it, he is a romantic at heart, but he feels Lucy has pushed his need to know the answer to his important question to the fore and so he lets go of Danny's hand to stand in front of him and take them both in his instead, squeezing slightly even though he knows his palms are probably a little clammy. He thinks by his expression that Danny notices too and hurries to speak.

“Danny, I love you.” He exhales, relaxing into the moment, and squeezes his boyfriend's fingers again to tell him wordlessly not to say anything yet. “I love you in the most unexpected ways and because I never expected _us_. I was happy with being friends, even if every time I'm near you it's like I'm being pulled in. I _need_ to be around you and I'm so grateful you feel the same. I know we've only just taken the next step, but Lucy's got one thing right. She wants to protect you because she loves you and I want that too, for the rest of my life.”

“Oh my god,” he hears her whisper and then her body is a blur as she runs out of the room, yelling, “Oh my god! Everyone! Quick!”

A shiver runs through him and Ryan bites his mouth, resisting the urge to stop. Danny's staring at him like he knows but needs to hear it anyway and it fills him up with more courage as suddenly there's chatter in the kitchen doorway. Danny's eyes glance over his shoulder at his family tucked together like sardines until Lucy shoves them out of the way to join her brother and Ryan in the kitchen once more.

“Go on!” she squeals, “Fuckin' ask him! I don't wanna be the only Smug Marrieds anymore,”

“Hush, sweetheart,” Danny's mum says softly behind them, “Let the boy speak.”

Danny shakes his head wryly and Ryan smiles faintly, the corner of his lips turned up. All he wants to do is kiss him, but he has to finish.

“As I was saying,” he continues, raising his voice and making their audience chuckle. “I want you, I need you and it doesn't matter how I found you, just that I have.” Figuring he's in for a penny, in for a pound and wishing to do at least this part properly, he lets one of Danny's hands go and eases onto the tiled floor on one knee. It's going to hurt staying down here for too long if he starts to ramble out of embarrassment. He reaches into the pocket of his jeans before he remembers that this wasn't planned. “I don't have it with me,” he confesses shyly and Danny half laughs, overwhelmed as he self-consciously touches the back of his neck with his free hand, “but you will get the ring later, if I ask you...the all important question...to grant me the honour...”

Danny rolls his eyes, knowing that he's dragging it out on purpose since they can feel Lucy practically hopping about in the background. Anyone would think she was a lovesick teenager and not a wife and mother herself. “I think my sister's gonna have a heart attack if you don't say it,”

“Damn right I will!” she cheers, “Never thought I'd see the bloody day we got rid of you for good!”

With a grin and breaking tradition, Ryan gets to his feet and crowds in closer to Danny's personal space, wanting this to be just for them. His fingertips stroke over Danny's beard as he cups his cheek. “Daniel,” he says, voice deep, as Danny's eyes flicker between his, his mouth about to say the fateful words and up to his eyes again. It's the extra push he needs to take the leap. “Will you become my husband?”

“Husband,” Lucy sighs dreamily, “Oh, it sounds so romantic like that,”

“You've already got one!” Danny laughs.

She pokes her tongue out at him. “And now you do too, kiddo.”

“Danny,” Ryan shakes his hand for his attention and Danny comes back to himself and leans into the touch on his face. For a second, he closes his eyes and an irrational fear crawls up to Ryan's throat until he opens them again. His blue eyes sparkle, electric. “Howdy, _partner_.” It crashes through the built tension and Ryan starts laughing he's so relieved. He lunges at his boyfriend – no, _fiancé_ \- to embrace him, warm and tight and never wants to let go. Behind them, his family sounds confused but Ryan's never been more certain of his love for this man and that it's been returned. He feels Danny's mouth move to his ear, words again meant to be private in the chaos. “Yes. My answer will always be yes. I love you.”

Ryan feels their twin smiles from where their cheeks are pressed together and he draws back to take Danny's face properly in his hands. “Love you back.”

He kisses him to a chorus of cheers and applause, a good crowd of the Miller family able to witness it. At first, he's understandably reserved, but it seems Danny has no such qualms as he grabs Ryan's shoulders and then to the back of his neck and head, their lips slotting together passionately as Ryan's hands find his waist. Eventually, their mouths smack apart as Danny lets him go, breathless. “Wow.” he pants, dazed and his stomach swoops giddily at the thought of what they're going to be like when they're alone, in their new home, _newly engaged_ tonight.

Danny looks at him flirtily, on the same wavelength, as he smooths his hands down the light blue shirt covering Ryan's arms. “This was what you were asking Sammy and Louise about?”

“Yeah. I was sure about you, but I needed advice on how, what would suit us best. Guess I don't need to worry now,”

“Sorry, that's my fault,” Lucy comes up to them, sheepish, and catches around Ryan first as an apology.

“It is,” he agrees, bending slightly to hug her back, “but I'll forgive you because we're going to be family.”

As Danny's parents and bewildered nephews and nieces congratulate him, Lucy cups Ryan's face in both her hands. “We _are_ family,” she says emphatically.

Willing himself not to, he blushes anyway and ducks his head from her grasp, pleased as punch. “I'll do right by him, I promise.”

“I know.”

Finally, Ryan finds his way back to Danny and he slides his arm around his waist because around the shoulder just won't cut it for the moment. Danny flattens his hand on his chest as they take a step backwards and look at how happy his family is for them. Ryan knows his will have the same response when he has to retell it all to his side.

“Y'know, I wanna know how you would've done it differently because this seems pretty spot on to me,” Danny tells him then leans up with his hand covering his mouth. “Maybe you can act it out for me when we're home, _naked_.”

Ryan turns his body to nuzzle into his jaw and hums in appreciation, but ultimately disagreeing. “I'm afraid we'll be too busy then. When we get home, baby, I'm gonna fuck you so - ”

“Kaitlin! Hi!” Danny interjects loudly, stopping him saying anything more, and Ryan buries his laughter into his shoulder until he can get a hold of himself to face Danny's niece who's appeared sweetly by his side. “How's my girl?”

Now that everyone has offered their congratulations, the commotion quiets until Vince, Danny's dad, speaks. “I think we should properly celebrate the great news. Champagne, anyone?”

It gets them all in the party mood and Ryan sees his future nuptials and any family occasion thereafter becoming a full on affair and, with Danny right there with him, he wouldn't want it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, lovelies x
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [theprincessed](http://www.theprincessed.tumblr.com). Come chat to me. :)


End file.
